The English Girl

by Margaret Leroy

  He walks to the piano to take a cigar from an ebony box, which has been put there for the party. He turns, his hand reaching out to take the cigar; sees me. Stops. His eyes widen. I feel a faltering in me.

  I start apologising at once.

  ‘I’m so sorry if I startled you. I just wanted to check my costume in the big mirror here. I’m so sorry…’

  The words tumbling out of me.

  ‘Where did you get that, Stella?’

  His voice is thickened; he sounds like a stranger to me. Even from here, I can smell the brandy fumes on his breath. I was right – he must have been drinking.

  ‘Marthe took me to Vogel’s fancy dress shop. It’s fun, isn’t it? Dressing up? I’m meant to be a flowergirl, but I’ve left the flowers upstairs…’

  Trying to make it easy between us again. But my body feels strange – too tall, too thin; unreal. Like a doll cut from paper.

  ‘And the scarf? Was that part of the outfit as well?’ he asks me.

  His eyes are searching my face: I wonder what he is looking for. I put my fingers to the scarf uncertainly.

  ‘Oh no. It’s just an old thing of my mother’s. She lent it to me.’

  I can’t read the emotion that deepens the lines in his face. Then he reaches out towards me – almost as though to touch me, though he’s standing too far away. The air is heavy with perfume; it feels too thick to breathe.

  ‘Stella…’

  One of the musicians saunters in, a glass of wine in his hand, humming a snatch of Roses from the South. Rainer turns, and leaves the room without his cigar.

  33

  The front door is wide open; the guests begin to arrive, all entering into the glamour and heat of the hall with an air of being dazzled. They bring gifts for Marthe, and flowers. The staff hired for the evening take the women’s fur jackets and stoles – sable, black bear, Persian lamb. The women have chosen flattering costumes – queens and shepherdesses. There’s a woman dressed as Marie Antoinette, her dress flounced and very low-cut, her rounded creamy breasts served up like something sweet on a plate. The men are dressed as soldiers, or in outfits designed to amuse. One man has come as a wolf, in a costume of shaggy grey fur.

  More and more guests come: the hall is filled with colour and laughter. But there are people I’d been expecting to see, yet who don’t seem to be here – the ones who attended Rainer’s meeting, when Janika made the Kaiserschmarrn. This seems surprising.

  The band begins to play in the Rose Room: Tales from the Vienna Woods. I stand to one side, sipping champagne, not quite sure where I belong. I feel rather lonely and lost; and insecure, after that disconcerting moment with Rainer, as though there’s something amiss with me – something about my appearance; perhaps something deeper than that. I wish that Harri were here with me, feel a small, childish jag of anger with him. Though I know that isn’t fair to him: it isn’t his fault he can’t come.

  I glance at Rainer – surreptitiously, not wanting to catch his eye. He appears quite normal again. He doesn’t seem drunk any more, just charming, benignly greeting his guests.

  Then Marthe comes over to me, bringing a young man dressed as a pirate.

  ‘Stella – I know you’ll want to meet Karl. He’s my second cousin,’ she says.

  Marthe evidently has a large and complicated family.

  Karl kisses my hand. He’s shorter than me, and rather too muscular and sporty-looking for my taste. But I’m relieved to have someone to talk to at last.

  I spend the first part of the evening dancing with Karl in the Rose Room. I’ve started to think of this room as my own, and it’s strange to see it crowded like this, humming with voices, given over to the shifting, rainbow kaleidoscope of the dance. Karl and I make stilted conversation. He’s an enthusiastic member of the German-Austrian Alpine Club; he talks at length about his adventures hiking in the Austrian Alps, and I nod and murmur politely. Mostly I try to lose myself in the sweep and lilt of the waltz.

  34

  In the sun room, it’s quieter and cooler. There are little groups of people talking, laughing, drinking, Marthe among them, resplendent in her Roman toga. I smile at Janika, who is offering canapés round. Karl leaves me here to rest for a while, while he fetches himself more champagne.

  The French windows have been opened. I stand beside them, next to a tub of white freesias: the air is full of the tender, drenching scent of the flowers. Brightness falls out of the door in a fan of marigold light, reaching as far as the balcony rail. But below me, in the corners of the courtyard, night has gathered, impenetrable as deep water.

  I wait there, enjoying the cool silk touch of the autumn night air on my skin. I feel as though I’m still moving, under the spell of the dance, the rhythm still pulsing through me. I feel all the elation that comes from waltzing and champagne. Life is simple, life is beautiful.

  It’s as I wait at the edge of the lighted room, looking down into the dark, that I become aware of a man in the room who keeps glancing in my direction. I feel his gaze like a hand on the nape of my neck. I turn slightly to look at him. He’s angular, cerebral-looking, with a long, freckled face. He’s wearing a dinner jacket: the right decision, undoubtedly – fancy dress would seem all wrong on him. In spite of his smart evening clothes, there’s a ramshackle air about him, his greying hair dishevelled, as though he keeps messing it up with his hand. In profile, his face has a beaked look, like a predatory bird.

  He moves across to speak to Marthe. I’m not at all surprised when she brings him over to me.

  ‘Stella, you must meet Herr Reece. He’s English, as you’ll gather. Frank – this is Fräulein Stella Whittaker.’

  He doesn’t bow or kiss my hand, but shakes hands the English way. His skin is cool, in spite of the warmth of the flat.

  ‘Delighted to meet you,’ he says, in English.

  His voice is nicotine-stained and gravelly. His words bring Brockenhurst back to me – the tangled woods, damp hedges, the scent of summer rain. I feel a quick pang of nostalgia, almost homesickness.

  ‘Well, I’ll leave you two to have a good talk about all things English,’ says Marthe.

  He inclines his head courteously to her as she drifts away. Then turns to me.

  ‘So, Miss Whittaker. Or may I call you Stella?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  His accent is much more upper-class than mine. I try to place him. Public school; Oxford, maybe. I once visited Oxford with my mother. I picture his college – a quad with a lawn of striped velvet; a secret garden entered through a low arched door in a wall.

  ‘You should call me Frank,’ he says.

  ‘All right. Well, Frank … I see you didn’t dress up…’

  ‘Actually, you’re wrong there, Stella.’ A slight ironic smile. ‘I came as an English gentleman.’

  ‘Well – your outfit is quite persuasive…’

  We both laugh a little.

  ‘Marthe tells me you’re living here?’ he says.

  In spite of his shaggy, disorganised air, his glance is keen, missing nothing.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you’re studying at the Academy?’

  ‘Yes. I study piano.’

  ‘You must be very talented,’ he says.

  I shrug self-deprecatingly: I never know how to respond when people say that.

  ‘And I must say, Stella,’ he goes on, ‘I have to congratulate you on your German. I overheard you talking – I hope you’ll forgive the intrusion – and to be honest I’d have taken you for a German speaker. For a native of Vienna, in fact.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  I feel myself flush with pleasure: I’m proud of my fluency in German. Then I feel a little unnerved; because Frank Reece must have been listening in on my conversation with Karl.

  ‘Though you have a very English look. You’re the picture of innocence in that outfit. A true English rose. Like one of the girls in Country Life,’ he says.

  I think of the photographic portraits at the front
of the magazine – it’s always some girl who’s engaged to be married, looking at once demure and entitled, with glossy waved hair and pearls at her ears and her throat. She’ll usually be a baronet’s daughter or something. I can’t help feeling flattered.

  ‘I suppose I’m lucky,’ I say. ‘Languages come easily to me. I’ve always enjoyed learning languages.’

  ‘It goes with the music, perhaps? Having a very good ear?’

  ‘Yes. That could be it.’

  ‘So – why German?’ A slight puzzled frown. ‘Isn’t it French that girls usually study in our English schools?’

  His gaze is disconcerting – his keen eyes never leaving my face. Usually people glance away in the course of a conversation. This man doesn’t do that. I think of a kestrel, hovering, vigilant; alert to the slightest frightened flickering in the grass below.

  I turn a little away from him – looking out to the balcony, where the marigold light falls across the wrought-iron rail. Beyond that, darkness.

  ‘My mother always wanted me to learn German,’ I tell him.

  ‘For any particular reason?’

  No one’s asked me that before. I realise that she never really explained.

  ‘Well, she’d been a musician too. And I suppose it’s a useful language for a musician. For singing Bach and so on. The Germans, of course, are such a musical race.’

  ‘Absolutely. And that’s nowhere quite as apparent as here in Vienna,’ he says.

  I realise that Frank has said almost nothing about himself, and I feel guilty – that I haven’t been quite polite. My mother always taught me to ask about the other person.

  ‘So, Frank – you work here in the city?’

  He nods.

  ‘At the British Embassy,’ he says. ‘I’m a cultural attaché.’

  That’s the sort of work that’s quite mysterious to me. I can’t think of any intelligent question to ask.

  ‘Goodness. That must be fascinating.’

  I sound so girlish.

  ‘Of course, with the international situation as it is, we have our work cut out here…’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you do,’ I say heartily.

  But I can’t imagine what that work involves. What do they do exactly, at the British Embassy?

  ‘The developments in Germany are rather alarming,’ he says.

  Then he stops, waits, requiring something of me. It comes to me that he’s not just making conversation – that it’s important to him to know what I think. That this matters to him. I feel rather unreal and dream-like, and plagued by that troubling feeling that can come to you in dreams – that the meaning of things is hidden from you. Perhaps that you’re playing a game of deadly import, but nobody’s told you the rules. I must have drunk more than I realised.

  ‘Well, yes, it’s awful, of course.’ But I remember what Harri’s grandfather said – that Hitler wouldn’t last long, that the generals would oust him. ‘Though people seem to think the Germans will come to their senses soon…’

  ‘And what about you, Stella? Do you think that?’

  ‘Well – it all seems very feverish.’ I think of the newsreels I’ve seen, of Hitler’s rallies. ‘All those ranting speeches, whipping up the crowd. I don’t see how it can carry on. They’ll get rid of him, won’t they?’

  ‘I’m not so sure we can count on that,’ he says drily. ‘Though unfortunately the British government seems to be taking that line.’

  ‘But … I mean, no one wants another war. It’s unthinkable.’

  His kestrel eyes are on me.

  ‘Is it?’ he says.

  I don’t say anything. I sip my champagne, rather nervously.

  ‘You see, Stella, I think they underestimate Herr Hitler,’ he tells me. ‘Mr Chamberlain and the government.’

  ‘Oh. Do they? In what way?’

  ‘The British look at Herr Hitler, and see a peasant, a clown. As you say – ranting. Poorly educated. A man who once lived as a tramp…’

  ‘He lived as a tramp?’ I’m amazed.

  Frank nods.

  ‘Here in Vienna, as it happens,’ he says. ‘And so they don’t take him quite seriously. It’s the great British flaw – to look at everything through the prism of class. They don’t see that he’s a master politician. Brilliant. Cunning. Stirring up the darkness in people. Playing on people’s fears.’

  ‘Oh. Really?’

  This sounds like rather histrionic language to me.

  He frowns slightly. His eyes are fixed on my face.

  ‘I’m afraid, Stella.’

  At first, I think I must have misheard. It’s such a bald statement – and surprising to hear from this assured Englishman, who seems so at ease in the world.

  ‘Afraid?’ I say.

  ‘Afraid for Vienna. Afraid for England as well.’

  ‘For England? But you surely don’t really think it will come to that? To war?’

  Frank makes a slight eloquent gesture, opening out his hand – a gesture that says that anything could happen. He doesn’t answer my question.

  Then he shrugs, smiles.

  ‘Sorry, Stella. I’m getting a bit lugubrious.’

  ‘Not at all…’ I smile. ‘Well, yes, you are, I suppose. But it’s interesting,’ I add politely.

  ‘Anyway – to change the subject to cheerier matters…’ And he hesitates, his eyes on me.

  There’s something calculating in his gaze. The cool night air through the open windows chills the sweat on my skin, and I shiver.

  ‘There was something I wanted to ask you, Stella, if I may.’

  ‘Yes. Of course.’

  But I feel a little pulse of fear, and wonder what this means. He must have alarmed me more than I realised, with his pessimistic outlook.

  ‘It’s a family matter. One of my daughters is quite a promising musician,’ he says.

  I feel myself breathe out. This seems like safer ground.

  ‘Oh. How lovely,’ I say.

  So he’s married; he has a family here. Or perhaps at boarding school in England. I imagine his daughters, imagine their life in England. Freckled girls with pigtails, in boaters and pink gingham frocks. Skipping ropes, Girl Guides, gymkhanas.

  ‘I wondered if I could maybe pick your brains one day – about the Academy, and careers in music, and so on?’

  ‘Yes, of course. I’d love to help. Your daughter – what does she play?’

  There’s the slightest pause – just a tiny hairline crack in the surface of things.

  ‘She also plays the piano,’ he says then.

  ‘Well, I’ll do what I can, though I really don’t know how much I can help you.’

  ‘You’re being too modest, Stella. I’m sure you can help me a lot.’

  He says this with a touch too much emphasis.

  The thought sneaks into my mind that this is all a pretext: that he’s using this daughter as a pretext to see me again. That he’s letting me know that this is just an excuse. I’m unnerved. Is he flirting? Yet I don’t feel the slightest shred of attraction between us. He’s perfectly attentive, but I don’t feel he admires me at all. The scent of the freesias licks at us like the tongue of an animal.

  ‘So perhaps I could invite you out for a coffee one day?’ he says smoothly. ‘Pick your brains a little? I’d be extremely grateful.’

  Why not? What could be the harm?

  ‘Yes, of course. I’d be happy to help.’

  ‘I was wondering – do you have a pigeonhole at the Academy?’ he asks me.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll write to you there then, Stella. Make some arrangements,’ he says.

  I think, but don’t ask: Why not write to me here at the flat? Then I tell myself I’ve drunk too much: I’m seeing significance where there’s none, and misinterpreting things.

  ‘Do you have an afternoon when you’re free?’ he asks me.

  ‘Well – Mondays sometimes.’

  ‘Right then,’ he says.

  Our conversation is over, and
I feel a rush of relief. I wonder if he will ask me to dance, but he doesn’t.

  ‘Now, I think I see that young man of yours coming this way,’ he tells me.

  I laugh.

  ‘Karl isn’t my young man,’ I tell him. ‘We met for the first time tonight.’

  ‘Oh. I’d imagined a young lady as lovely as you would have someone she sees.’

  His face is a question. He always goes, I think, just a little too far – one step further than is quite polite.

  ‘Well – I do have a friend, but he couldn’t come, he was working.’

  ‘Let me rephrase that then … The young man you were dancing with is coming over,’ he goes on, fluidly. ‘Such a pleasure to have met you, Stella. Enjoy the party.’

  He shakes my hand, moves away.

  I’m so relieved to see Karl. He talks in far too much detail about an epic hike he went on, but I don’t mind now. I’m grateful for his straightforwardness, his transparency: for the way there’s nothing hidden under his words.

  35

  It’s getting colder, the weather rushing towards winter. When I draw back my curtains in the mornings there’s a white scrawl of frost on the glass.

  The next time I go to Harri’s, I find Lotte flushed with excitement.

  ‘Stella. I’ve got a new puppet theatre. You have to see it,’ she says.

  The puppet theatre is splendid: it has a curtain of carmine silk, and is stencilled with roses and thorns.

  ‘You have to sit there.’ She gives me a little push onto the sofa.

  ‘Lotte – don’t manhandle Stella like that,’ says Harri.

  ‘But I’m going to do a play for her.’

  She holds up a piece of paper that says Scene I in red wax crayon. Then she takes up two of the marionettes, the princess and the queen.

  The play tells the story of a princess who wants to go and play in the woods. She has hair of crimped black wool, a frock of lemon brocade, and a determined expression. The princess argues with the queen because she won’t let her play where she wants. The queen scolds her.